30 Minutes
by Rosajean
Summary: She never expected the ritual she'd started after her first week at the BAU to last over 5 years.
1. Chapter 1

She's fairly certain that not a single person on her team could ever guess it of her. The Agent Emily Prentiss they see at work – that she _shows_ them at work – is strong and reliable. She never blinks, never flinches in the face of her duty, and always meets it head on. And she definitely never ever cries.

When she first joined the BAU, she had so much to prove to everyone, including herself, but especially to Hotch. It was clear she wasn't wanted, so there was no way she was going to give them a reason to send her packing. And at any rate, she wasn't about to go discussing her 'feelings' with people she didn't know and didn't yet trust.

But after her first week at the BAU, her compartmentalizing skills were already being tested to the limit. How was she to pretend that she didn't care, that her heart didn't break for the victims, that she didn't wish to pummel the unsubs out of anger and disgust? All alone in Quantico where her acquaintances were few and her friends were zero, who was she supposed to talk to?

So after that very first week, it all began – of course, at the time she hadn't known that it would turn into a ritual that's now lasted over 5 years.

They've questioned her over the years, asking her on multiple occasions how can she be so emotionless and detached from all that they see and do. And of course she falls back on that ready-made excuse that she compartmentalizes better than most. But the truth of the matter is that she's not quite as jaded and hardened as she appears – as she likes to let them think she is.

The first night home after a case, the ritual began.

30 minutes, she told herself. She'd give herself 30 minutes to let the emotion out of the boxes that she'd shoved it into all week long. The fear, the sadness, the disbelief, the disgust, the anger, the disappointment, the hatred, the hopelessness, the desperation, the frustration, the anxiety – whatever feeling wanted to overwhelm her during the cases they'd worked on that week, she gave herself 30 minutes to actually feel it. And for that time frame she'd do whatever she needed to do to deal with it – whether that meant going through a box of tissues, gulping down a pint of ice cream, or finding the nearest gym to pound it out on a punching bag. But when the 30 minutes were up, she'd put her emotions back in their boxes to pretend they didn't exist until the next time she could restart the ritual. She never let herself go past the allotted time, too keen on maintaining her self-control to just let emotions completely rule her life for anything other than those 30 minutes.

She'd just never planned for what she would do if someone caught her in the middle of those 30 minutes of unleashing.

_TBC…_


	2. Chapter 2

**I apologize that you've had to wait so long for this second chapter. My life went a little haywire recently, I got laid off, moved 1432 miles across the country, and am now job hunting and apartment hunting while staying with some family. I shall endeavor to be more consistent with my updates, but don't worry, I'm not abandoning this story. :) **

David Rossi parked his car in front of Emily's building and grabbed the bottle of red wine and pan of lasagna from the front passenger seat. He quickly got out, locked the doors and made his way to her front door to ring the bell. As he waited on the front stoop, he chided himself for not calling ahead. But it wasn't like he had really planned this out.

He had been at home in his kitchen, mulling over the past week in his head. The entire week there was something that wasn't sitting right with him about Emily, but try as he might he couldn't put his finger on just what it was. But at home in his kitchen, he could do his best thinking, and as he made the homemade sauce for his lasagna he mentally reviewed everything that had happened that week.

The call for them to go to Atlanta had come in less than 6 hours after they had arrived back from their last case and it was apparent how exhausted everyone was as they climbed back onto the jet with a clean set of clothes in their to-go bags and just a couple hours of sleep to recuperate. He had spent most of this week's case paired up with Emily, which had become more and more common since her return to the team. As far as the profiler in him could tell, she behaved the same as always: professional objectivity in the field, but warm and friendly around their team. But the part of him that was the friend, not the profiler (and yes, he could separate those when he needed to, thank you very much!) told him that something wasn't right and it was beginning to piss him off that he couldn't figure it out.

He stewed over his options as he put together his famous lasagna, but instead of sliding it into the oven to bake he threw a lid over it and grabbed a bottle of wine from the wine rack as he headed out the front door. He drove the normally twenty minute drive to her place in ten, intent on finding out what was going on.

* * *

><p>When Emily heard her doorbell ring, she flew into a panic. Her living room was a mess, her face was a mess, and her emotions were all over the place. Who the hell was at her front door? She waited, unmoving, for a full minute, hoping whoever it was would just go away. But the subsequent knock on her front door made it clear that she just wasn't that lucky. She tiptoed across the living room to the front door and looked through the peephole. Silently she cursed the man standing on her front step. What the hell was Rossi doing here? Maybe if she just stayed silent he would go away.<p>

"Emily! Open up! I know you're in there, I can see your car parked out front."

"Shit." She whispered to herself. She quickly racked her brains for an excuse to turn him away. Raising her voice loud enough so that he could hear her through the door, and cursing it for sounding so muddied with her tears, she hollered back, "Um, now's not really a good time. Can you come back later? Or tomorrow?"

That was not the response that Dave had been expecting. For a quick moment of embarrassment he thought he might have interrupted some kind of date with a boyfriend. But he distinctly remembered hearing her talk about the lack of guys in her life to JJ just yesterday, and even beyond that just the sound of her voice told him there was something going on, something wrong.

"Emily, just open the damn door! I'm not above calling Hotch and getting the emergency key he keeps in his office."

There was a long, drawn-out pause and then, "Goddamnit Rossi! Why can't you just leave well enough alone?" She rolled her eyes as she opened the door and stood back for him to enter. She tried not to flinch as she met his gaze square on. There was no use trying to hide it after all, the man was a master profiler and it wouldn't take him more than a glimpse of her living room, strewn with used tissues and broken crayons and colored pencils to know that something was up, even if he didn't see her puffy eyes, tear-streaked face, and runny nose.

He didn't say anything at first, afraid that to do so would inadvertently give away the shock he was feeling at seeing Emily Prentiss thoroughly discomposed.

"Well? Are you going to just stand there or are you going to come in so I can shut the door?" She asked, with no real heat in her voice. She just didn't have the energy in her to get mad at him right now.

He didn't answer, but stepped into her apartment, handing her the bottle of wine and then followed her down the hall to the kitchen. He took in the state of the living room as they passed it quickly, and noted at the sight of the half-filled wine glass that she had already started drinking without him. When he stepped into the kitchen, she was already putting his bottle in the fridge and pulling out the one she already had open to pour him a glass. He turned on the oven to preheat for the lasagna, then turned around to find her – arms folded and leaning against the counter – looking at him like she'd just as soon throw him out again as talk to him.


End file.
